Red-Billed Quelea Bird

 The red-billed quelea is a small passerine noted for its colorful feathers and bright red bill. It is also known as the weaver bird. It is a sociable bird that travels in huge flocks of up to 30 million members. The bird is native to the sub-Saharan region of Africa.

Quelea Scientific Name

Its scientific name is Quelea quelea. The pronunciation is KWEE-LEE-AH. Other names for this bird are the weaver bird, red-billed weaver, or red-billed dioch.

Amazing Facts 

• There are more red-billed queleas than there are any other birds in the world.
• Males build the nests and use their nests to attract females.
• They eat half their body weight in grass and seeds daily.
• They are known as “Africa’s feathered locusts” because they are so destructive to crops.

There are three subspecies of the red-billed quelea:

 quelea quelea

 quelea aethiopica

 quelea lathamii

Quelea Appearance

A red-billed quelea is a small bird about the size and shape of a swallow. It is about 5 inches long and typically weighs just under one ounce. It has a heavy, cone-shaped bill that can range from red to orange.

Most males have black masks, and a few have white masks. Around the mask, the feathers may be yellow, red, pink, or lavender. The bird’s upper body has brown and white feathers, and its flight feathers may be green or yellow. The male sports bright colors during the mating season. During non-breeding seasons, the bill may turn pink or orange.

Females also have red bills, but they don’t have the facial masks that males wear. As in most bird species, the males are more brightly colored than females.

Behavior

Queleas are highly social birds. They travel, nest, and feed in large flocks known as colonies. These flying flocks can reach 30 million birds or more. Together, they descend on farm fields and eat grass seeds.

  When in their flocks, they make a large sound caused by thousands of beating wings. Both males and females sing, and their call sounds like they’re saying, “Tweedle-toodle-tweedle.”

Quelea birds have been compared to locusts because they eat seeds and cereal crops. Farmers have tried to control them using different measures, but the birds continue to outgrow these attempts by reproducing in enormous numbers.

In 2021, these birds destroyed several hundred acres of rice farms in Uganda. One farmer reported that her crops were wiped out just three weeks after the birds arrived.

Quelea Habitat

The red-billed quelea is native to sub-Saharan Africa, and it has a wide distribution in most of the continent. It is abundant in Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

This bird prefers a dry, grassy environment. It can be found in the bush, grassland, and savannah regions.

Quelea Diet

Red-billed queleas are omnivores who eat grass, seeds, and cereal crops, including wheat, rice, and corn. Among the crops they have been recorded eating are:

Barley

Buckwheat

Bulrush (pearl millet)

Foxtail

Finger millet

Rice

Sorghum

When preparing to migrate, they supplement their diet with insects, which are higher in calories than seeds. The extra calories give them the fat reserves they need to make the long journey to warmer weather. They travel from 190 to 370 miles during their annual migration.

They prefer to hunt for food in their native habitat of the forest, scrubland, and grassland, but they will invade human farms when their food sources run out. For this reason, queleas are hated and feared by African farmers, especially small-scale farmers who can’t afford expensive methods of bird control.

The birds are voracious. They feed from dawn to dusk. As one expert found, the average weaver bird can eat roughly half its body weight daily in grains, so 2 million flocking birds can eat 20 tons of grain in a single day.

Quelea Predators and Threats

The quelea has many natural predators. They include owls, snakes, squirrels, monkeys, foxes, lions, and leopards. All these animals and others feed on the birds. Bird species that eat queleas include the tawny eagle and marabou stork.

Humans are also threats. Farmers try to protect their crops by destroying large numbers of quelea birds. Despite these efforts to control their population, the birds have a persistent presence in most African countries.

Many people in Africa also eat these birds, and many of them are caught and sold for food at African markets every week.

Quelea Reproduction and Life Cycle

These birds breed communally, flocking together to share resources and nesting sites. They typically build their nests in thorn trees, but they occasionally use sugar cane or other plants. Their colonies can be huge. A large colony in Zimbabwe, for instance, had 10,000 nests per acre. Scientists also counted more than 6,000 nests in one tree.

After the birds mate, the female lays her eggs in the nest. Each clutch can range from 1 to 5 eggs, but it typically has 3. After 10 to 12 days, the nestlings emerge from the eggs. They are born with white bills and barely any feathers. Their eyes open a few days later. Both parents feed the babies for about 10 days. After that, the babies leave the nest and fly on their own.

The hatchlings molt every few months. At 5 months, their plumage colors resemble those of their parents. They reach sexual maturity in one year.

They live 2 to 3 years in the wild.

Nests

Unlike other bird species, males take a leading role in nest-building duties. Only males build the nests, and they can take two to three days to finish them. When the male finishes, he displays his colorful plumage and his nest to attract females.

Roseate Spoonbills

 The Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja, sometimes separated in the monotypic genus Ajaia) is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, 

The Roseate Spoonbill is a large species of wading Bird, found from the Gulf Coast of the United States to Argentina at the tip of South America. The Roseate Spoonbill is one of six Spoonbill species found across the world, and although they all inhabit warmer, tropical climates, the Roseate Spoonbill is the only one that is found in the western hemisphere. Like all Spoonbill species, the Roseate Spoonbill is named for its spatula shaped beak, which becomes flatter and broader towards the end, allowing the Roseate Spoonbill to scoop food out of the water with ease. They are closely related to other large wading Birds including, Herons, Storks and Egrets and are often mistaken in Florida for Flamingoes, particularly by tourists.

Description:

The Roseate Spoonbill is said to be one of the most distinctive Birds found in North America, with their pink and white plumage, orange tail-feathers, red legs and eyes and black feet. Like all wading Birds, the legs of the Roseate Spoonbill are thin and very long, allowing them to walk about in the shallow waters without getting their head or feathers wet. Their distinctively long beak is very sensitive to enable the Bird to easily detect the presence of prey, and has two small slits close to the top meaning that the Roseate Spoonbill can still breathe whilst its beak is submerged in the water. The skin on their head is featherless and often has a greenish tinge to it, leading to their lighter coloured beak.

This species is unmistakable. It is 80 cm (31 in) tall, with a 120–130 cm (47–51 in) wingspan. It has long legs, a long neck, and a long, spatulate bill. Adults have a bare greenish head (“golden buff” when breeding) and a white neck, back, and breast (with a tuft of pink feathers in the center when breeding), and are otherwise a deep pink. The bill is grey.

Males and females look alike, but immature birds have white feathered heads and the pink of the plumage is paler. The bill is yellowish or pinkish.

Unlike herons, spoonbills fly with their necks outstretched. They alternate groups of stiff, shallow wingbeats with glides.

They are not very skittish and when feeding or bathing can often be observed within thirty to forty feet.

Behavior and Lifestyle

The Roseate Spoonbill is a very sociable Bird that inhabits its wetland homes with other Roseate Spoonbills, and they are also commonly found in the presence of other waders including Herons, Egrets and Ibises which they are closely related to. The Roseate Spoonbill is a fairly large Bird, making its flying style long and slow. They fly together in small flocks in diagonal lines with their necks and heads outstretched, when moving between habitats or migrating to their annual nesting sites. The Roseate Spoonbill is often seen in small flocks when feeding but they have also been found to do this on their own as well. In the wild, they are known to be particularly shy Birds, with the whole colony known to fly away if startled, but have been known to adapt well to Human disruption when kept in captivity.

Diet / Feeding:

This species feeds in shallow fresh or coastal waters by swinging its bill from side to side as it steadily walks through the water, often in groups. It feeds on crustaceans, aquatic beetles and bugs, and very small fish bigger waders ignore. In the United States a popular and easy place to observe Roseate Spoonbills is “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

Roseate Spoonbills sometimes feed near Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Tricolored Herons, and American White Pelicans. As spoonbills they feed in the shallow muck of ponds, marshes and rivers and do not try to catch free-swimming fish except the smallest, so they do not compete for the fish the other wading birds in general are fishing.

They are not very skittish and when feeding or bathing can often be observed from within thirty or forty feet.

Reproduction and Life Cycles

The Roseate Spoonbill is a colonial nesting bird, meaning that they gather in large numbers to produce and rear their young, possibly for protection. Roseate Spoonbills reach sexual maturity at the age of 3 or 4, when they migrate to appropriate nesting grounds to find a mate. Once paired up on coastal islands, both the male and female construct a nest in trees, thick bushes or reeds where up to four eggs are laid per clutch. The Roseate Spoonbill chicks usually hatch after an incubation period of around three weeks, and fledge after about a month. The young Roseate Spoonbills have white plumage with a slight pink tinge, and often won’t develop the colourful adult feathers for at least a couple of years. Both the incubating of the eggs and the feeding of the chicks is shared by the male and female parents.

Distribution :

It is a resident breeder in South America mostly east of the Andes, and in coastal regions of the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and the Gulf Coast of the United States. Vagrant birds have been sighted as far north as Delaware, Indiana, and Kansas.

In the United States a popular and easy place to observe Roseate Spoonbills is at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island just off the west coast of Florida across a causeway connecting to Fort Myers.

Nesting

The Roseate Spoonbill nests in shrubs or trees, often mangroves, laying 2 to 5 eggs, which are whitish with brown markings. Immature birds have white, feathered heads, and the pink of the plumage is paler. The bill is yellowish or pinkish. It does not usually share colonies with storks or herons.

Predators and Threats

Despite the large size of the Roseate Spoonbill, it is not uncommon for them to be hunted by hungry predators. Alligators in the water, along with felines like Pumas and Jaguars are the most common predators of the adults in their natural environment, but it is Humans that pose the biggest threat to them, mainly through hunting. The eggs and more vulnerable chicks of the Roseate Spoonbill are in even more danger as they are preyed upon by a variety of species including Raccoons, Coyotes and Hawks. One of the biggest threats to Roseate Spoonbill populations today is the loss of their native habitats, mainly seeing that many of these natural wetlands have been either drained or pollution has caused the water to become contaminated.

Interesting Facts and Features

Despite its very distinctive appearance, the Roseate Spoonbill is often mistaken for other Birds like the Flamingo, particularly when in flight, even though they are generally smaller in size and have a longer, wider beak than these pinker Birds. 

Not only is their distinctive spoon-like bill useful for catching food though, but there are also very sensitive nerves at the end, which causes the Roseate Spoonbill’s beak to snap shut quickly when it comes into contact with small aquatic organisms. 

It is widely believed that the reason for the bright pink plumage of the Roseate Spoonbill, is due to the algae eaten by the Crustaceans that these Birds consume (in a similar way to the Flamingo but not quite as bright).